French police clear Calais migrant camps as NGOs protest
French police began the evacuation of three migrants’ camps in the Channel port of Calais at 8.00am on Wednesday. Rights campaigners predict that new camps will spring up as the migrants try to reach Britain.
Issued on:
Police moved into the “Syrians’ camp”, where about 400 Syrians, Afghans and others were living, on Wednesday morning.
Almost all the inhabitants had left before the operation started, about 200 migrants and campaigners protested against it at the camp’s entrance.
Two other camps, one - the “Africans’” - on the port and the other on a two square were to be cleared afterwards.
About 650 of the roughly 850 migrants present in the Calais area had been living in the camps.
Interpreters in several languages offered showers and new clothes to any of the camps’ occupants but few took advantage of the transport offered for fear of being taken to locations far away from the Channel port, where they hope to hide on vehicles crossing to the United Kingdom.
The evacuation was announced a week ago with local authorities arguing it was necessary because of an outbreak of the skin disease scabies and poor sanitary conditions.
In an open letter on Tuesday 10 NGOs, including Médécins du Monde and Secours Catholique, accused the local authorities of failing to provide proper health care and police of harassing the migrants.
“The number of migrants is so great that we have to close the camps on the port,” local préfet, Denis Robin, said. “We can’t let these camps develop or a new ‘jungle’ will be created again.”
Robin was referring to the Sangatte camp, known as the “jungle”, which was supposed to accommodate 800 but whose population grew to 2,000 before it was closed in September 2009.
The presence of hundreds of migrants in Calais is “a problem that is extraordinarily difficult to resolve”, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on France Inter radio on Tuesday, suggesting that France might offer asylum to some Syrians.
Seven migrants have died trying to go to Britain this year, the last on Friday when he was crushed by the coach to which he was clinging.
Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning
Subscribe